


Claustrophobia

by DivineVarod



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Guilt, Meltdown, Other, Psychosis, Quarantine, Solitary Confinement, Terrorform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:20:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineVarod/pseuds/DivineVarod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reason Lister developed claustrophobia had nothing to do with the story he told the Cat. The true cause of it was not something that happened to him, but something he did. Something that caused an horrific indecent with Rimmer he would never forget. The worst thing he'd ever done ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claustrophobia

_“They've forgotten me, haven't they?” Arnold Rimmer sat in the corner, his knees pulled up to his chin, arms wrapped around them. He was slowly rocking himself. “They're never going to let me out of here. They are gonna leave me here forever. I'll lose my mind. I can't, I can't be in here for all eternity! Not with my thoughts – not with my mind!! Please …!” The Hologram sobbed silently._  
  
They'd forgotten him, for more than 40 hours they'd forgotten him.  
  
It was supposed to be a prank. He should only have been in there for an hour, tops. Dave Lister simply wanted Rimmer to feel how they had felt when quarantined by him. A little payback, just some light-hearted fun. It really was only supposed to have been for an hour …  
  
When he, Cat and Kryten appeared at the window in their Gingham dresses Lister had noticed confusion and then slight panic in Rimmer's eyes. The Scouser ignored it, after all the Hologram had happily done the same to them. Anyway, he'd let him out in a bit.  
Holly kept urgently insisting she had to tell him something regarding Rimmer which annoyed him. He was just having a laugh for smeg sake. He shushed her, telling her to butt out, he'd let him out soon enough. Holly left in a huff.  
  
When done fooling around with Rimmer the trio split up. Kryten immediately went about his duties cleaning the ship. It was a complete mess according to the irate Android. The Cat fled all of them to go to his deepest most secret quarters to catch up on all his missed showers, naps and preening. Lister got changed and then got drunk.  
  
The next day. Lister woke up with a hangover and the nagging feeling he'd forgotten something very important but could not put his finger on it. Then the Cat got in announcing he was hungry. Lister fed him and soon the two of them were locked in a miniature golfer tournament followed by another evening of boozing. All the while the burning feeling he had forgotten something extremely significant kept returning, but he remained oblivious as to what it was.  
The fact that he had not seen Rimmer all day meant nothing: These days Rimmer avoided the group as much as he could. He could not stand the endless jokes and bullying anymore. The Hologram would often wake up hours before Lister to go jogging and start on his daily to do list. Sometimes the only point at which Lister would see him was bed time.  
  
The next day. Lister woke up to an empty room again late in the afternoon. There was no sign Rimmer had ever been in. Lister noted worriedly he had not seen Rimmer the night before either. He couldn't have gone on holiday, that was certain. The Hologram would always make Holly inform them if he went of on a trip to the Diesel Decks or any of the other strange places he tended to enjoy. Lister had the sinking feeling something was very wrong. He also realised that it had to do with what he had forgotten.  
Then Holly appeared looking upset and exasperated: “Look. You told me to butt out, but you promised you'd let him out soon!”  
Lister looked up at her aghast. The sinking feeling became an ice bath that swallowed him whole. Lister jumped from his bunk and ran to Kryten's quarters: “We've forgotten Rimmer!!”  
The horrified Mechanoid dropped an entire laundry basket, it's contend exploding through the room, to run after the Scouser.  
  
Out of breath Lister fell into the Quarantine room. “Rimmer, I'm so …” Lister begun. But to his surprise there was no-one there. His stomach churned when he noticed the tiny lightbee laying in the corner. “Rimmer, I'm sorry …” he whispered, picking it up.  
“I had to switch him off after 38 hours …” Holly said sadly. “It was unbearable.”  
“Why didn't you remind me?” Lister said sounding choked up.  
“You told me not to!!” The Computer said indignantly. “You told me not to talk!”  
Lister cringed. Then he remembered something else: Holly had urgently wanted to tell him something about Rimmer. He was ready to listen now.  
“What did you want to tell me, Hol?”  
Holly sighed and shook her head.  
“I wanted to tell you that you shouldn't punish him for something he can't even remember.”  
The colour drained from Lister's face.  
“What?” His voice cracked.  
“His memory data shows a gap from opening the communication with you to waking up in Quarantine …”  
Lister felt dizzy, he'd never even considered that. “Kryten …” he rasped. “Did you …” Kryten shook his head. “I didn't check sir …” he said sadly.  
  
\--

“Another great joke from Dave Lister …” the Scouser said to himself. He was sitting at the table in the bunkroom, staring at the lightbee in front of him. He was scared of turning it on. He'd been there before: one time he'd swallowed Rimmer's lightbee whole as both a punishment and a joke, only to find out later that the whole reason Rimmer had been so unhinged was because he had damaged the lightbee in the first place. The reason he'd damaged the lightbee was because he'd been … joking. Rimmer who valued hygiene to the point of mysophobia had been out of kilter for almost two weeks after the event.  
  
“If only pranking Rimmer wasn't so rewardingly hilarious …” Lister thought. He'd always been fond of pranking people and no-one's reactions had ever been as priceless as Rimmer's.  
Lately, though, Lister begun to worry he was taking things too far. It was as if he Kryten and the Cat were ganging up on Rimmer three against one. Yes, Rimmer could be insufferable and difficult but did he ever get a chance to be anything else if everyone kept making him the butt of jokes?  
He knew the Hologram could be different he had seen that countless times. Sadly stirring the other, happy Rimmer demanded as much work as gaining the trust of a feral dog and Lister often felt to lazy for that. Needling, fooling, duping the Hologram, it was what Lister thought he needed to keep himself sane. In a way, it was why Rimmer had been turned on in the first place, right?  
  
Wrong.  
  
Lister couldn't even believe he was thinking this. Was that really him? Was he really hurting someone on a daily basis just because he thought the words of a computer had somehow given him the right? A person with feelings was not a toy. What the smeg was the matter with him? Could this damage ever be undone? He doubted it. Already Rimmer had closed of to the point they'd barely noticed him now. The fact that it had taken him two days to realise the Hologram had been missing was testament to how much of an outsider Rimmer had become. “No wonder the virus made him turn against us, if it'd been me I'd done the same.” Lister thought. He wondered if Rimmer would ever talk to him again after this.  
  
How do you apologise to someone when you accidentally subject them to nearly two days of mental torture? The worst part, to Lister, was that Rimmer had been alone. When he had been locked in at-least he'd had the others. They might have been fighting most of the time but it had been company and when it came down to it had each-others back.  
Rimmer had been locked in with only his own mind for company less than two weeks after the horrific incidents on that terraform planet, (an incident that still made the Hologram wake up screaming on almost a nightly basis.) He'd been unable to call for help and unable to pound the doors. At the same time he was suffering the after effects from that bizarre virus. Then, as if that wasn't enough, he was certain everyone detested him and must have been convinced no-one was coming for him. With no memory of how he'd ended up there the Hologram must have been certain it was done out of spite. Especially as the last thing he remembered – oh smeg! – The last thing Rimmer remembered was them bullying him like stupid teenagers and then cheerfully announcing they'd replace him with someone else.  
  
With a trembling hand he pressed: ON.  
Slowly a wild eyed, manic haired Rimmer appeared. The terrified man immediately jumped into the furthest corner of the room and curled himself into a ball where he begun rocking himself.  
“Rimmer … I'm so sorry …”  
“Never going to get out … never …” Rimmer muttered, not seeming to be aware of where he was or noticing Lister.  
“Rimmer, you're in your room. You're out!!”  
Rimmer didn't hear him.  
  
\--

No amount of coaxing could get the petrified Rimmer from his corner.  
Holly told Lister she feared that Rimmer was having a psychosis brought on by both the solitary confinement and not having slept in days due to the holo-virus. This was why she had switched him of.  
While Lister had been unsuccessfully trying to make Rimmer aware of where he was, Kryten had been conferencing with Holly on the best course of action. Holly was convinced that the kindest thing to do right now was to let Rimmer sleep. Lister and Kryten agreed and Holly sedated the tortured man.  
When Rimmer had finally fallen asleep Kryten gently turned of his lightbee and turned it on again above his bunk. Holly and Kryten agreed that they'd let him sleep for now and scan him later to see if anything could be done to reset his mind.  
  
\--  
  
Lister dragged himself to the drive room where he asked Holly to play him the black box of Rimmer's incarceration. He wanted to wallow in the guilt.  
Fast forwarding through the long, long hours of imprisonment he watched Rimmer slowly lose his mind. From shock and confusion to panic to all out fear all the way through to complete delirium.  
Lister's heart broke, he did not want to be the one responsible for this, but he was.  
  
Thirty-six hours in. On the screen he heard Rimmer mumble that he probably deserved this, he must have been loathed by the posse for too long. It made sense, he must have done something wrong. Hadn't his parents done the same? “But what did I do …? If only I knew what I did to make him snap.” Rimmer muttered. “I never expected Lister could do this to me …”  
  
As a horrible deeply wounded crying sound echoed through the drive room a numb Lister stared at the screen. The guilt of being the reason for that sound was what really caused his claustrophobia, but that was something he would never tell.


End file.
